


matronymics

by thirteenblackbirds



Series: between divine and mortal [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteenblackbirds/pseuds/thirteenblackbirds
Summary: Khalid and his daemon receive a summons from his maternal grandfather, and have decisions to make.
Series: between divine and mortal [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842130
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	matronymics

When Khalid first receives news of his maternal grandfather's request, he is ragged and tired from an afternoon of testing the limits of his bond with Ameretat. They'd gotten the slightest bit further than they did last time before the gasping pain had forced them to stop and she'd come sprinting back to him like a bowstring snapping back into place. They both believe it is important to continue practicing — one day, it could mean the difference between life and death. But for now, he is happy to hold her in his arms — a gesture that has become rarer as they've grown up — each taking comfort in the other's closeness and warmth, relishing in the feeling of one soul at home. 

She had settled the winter before, in his fifteenth year and, while a traditional cause for celebration, they had both mourned the freedom of metamorphosis. A lavish week of feasting had followed to mark his official passing into adulthood. (There had been whispers about Ameretat's settled form even then. His brothers' daemons had settled into a puma and a hawk respectively — undisputed predators worthy of the souls of warriors, rather than an opportunistic hunter and forager. The word _trickster_ was murmured in shadows. _Schemer_. _Coward_. He had pretended not to hear even as he felt Ameretat's hackles rise, keeping one hand on her ruff firmly, protectively, as he bit down on his congenial smile. There was no point in confronting them yet, even if it might provide some temporary satisfaction to show them how sharp her teeth and claws could be. Khalid has a longer game, a bolder ambition, in mind.)

When his mother's longest-serving attendant arrives to fetch him, she finds them sleeping on the tiered terrace, curled tightly around each other. Having known her lady’s son for years now, she is careful to tread audibly (the last attendant who had tried to approach silently so as to not disturb the prince had almost gotten a poisoned dagger in his throat for his troubles). Sure enough, while Khalid remains motionless, the golden-grey bundle of fur at his side stirs and raises her head, alert dark eyes fixing in her direction. Her own squirrel daemon scuttles ahead to greet her.

After a minute, the fox’s ears flick and Khalid stretches into a sitting position, legs crossed. His hair is tousled from sleep, but, like his daemon, his green eyes are alert. 

“Your royal mother requests that you visit her at her residences this afternoon,” she says with a dip of her head. She is old now and her knees suffer when she performs the full obeisance. The prince has given her a standing order not to do so in front of him.

“Oh? That’s unexpected. I just took tea with her yesterday. Any idea what this could be about?”

She says nothing, demurring. Even if she’d guessed the reason, from the thick envelope stamped with an insignia she recognized from a ring the queen keeps tucked away at the bottom of her jewelry box and never wears, it is not her place to give voice to such speculations.

And it is not as though he truly expects her to respond as he rises to his feet in a fluid motion, sending her daemon scampering back to her shoulder. “No, I suppose not. I better not keep her waiting then. Lead on, Shadi.” If she finds it unusual that his daemon is carried in his arms today rather than sauntering alongside him, she does not comment on it.

* * *

“Is this a joke?”

To the side, he can see Ameretat and his mother’s russet-brown Clemente chatting quietly. Knowing the two of them, it could be about anything from which fig tree has the sweetest fruit this week to his grandfather’s apparently hilarious sense of humour.

“It is not a joke,” his mother says calmly. Dangerously calmly. “Godfrey — my brother, your uncle — is dead.” No euphemisms here. “House Riegan needs a new heir, apparently.”

“Why not you?”

The scorn in her voice when she responds is not directed at him. “I have no desire to return to Fodlan. Certainly not now and possibly not ever.”

“So you’re sending me?”

This time, her impatience is for him. “I am giving you a choice. We can just as easily burn this letter, no need to bother anyone to take the ashes back. But I thought you may wish to consider it.”

Ameretat’s bristly-soft coat presses into his hand from where she’s trotted back to his side. He doesn’t need to hear her voice in his head a second later to know what she means. _Don’t be hasty._

His response is a flash of old exasperation. _Nothing can ever be easy, can it?_

Amusement flickers back. _We’d be bored out of our mind if it was._

True enough. Though the bond between human and daemon is not, strictly speaking, telepathic, two halves of the same soul hardly need words to understand one another. “When does Duke Riegan need a response by?”

His mother smiles, close-lipped, amusement crinkling her eyes. “It doesn’t say, but I wouldn’t leave it for too long. The Leicester Alliance was a wyverns' den even while House Riegan had an heir and a leader in good health. I can’t imagine that the situation has done anything other than deteriorate since. If you wait too long, there may no longer be an Alliance to be the heir of.”

A sick leader with no heir. That is as volatile a political situation as any. Nature abhors a vacuum. 

“I’ll have an answer for him by tomorrow,” he says, already bowing and turning to leave. 

“In case you decide to take him up on it, you’d better start getting used to calling him ‘grandfather’,” she says, the words trailing after him into the rapidly cooling evening air.

He waves aside the litter-bearers that spring to attention when they see him. “I’ll walk,” he tells them. “I want to stretch my legs.” And do a bit of thinking without the presence of six pairs of humans and daemons stifling him. 

“What do you think?” he asks Ameretat once they are deep enough into the vast walled gardens that no one else is around, heading toward a shortcut they found during an afternoon of exploration years ago.

“If it wasn’t an opportunity, Mother would not have raised it with you.”

Khalid knows that to be true. “Did Clemente say anything useful?”

Her response is delayed by her spotting and chasing a chipmunk up into a tall cypress. “He says the figs at the northern end of the Eternal Pyre temple are starting to get overripe.” She leaps up to nip at a passing butterfly, teeth clicking on empty air as the bright blue insect flutters away indignantly. Khalid waits patiently, knowing there is more to come. After a beat, Ameretat’s eyes flit to him, head tilted. She looks almost put out.

“You’re getting predictable,” he tells her, earning him a mock-growl.

“ _We’re_ getting predictable then,” she sniffs.

He laughs. “Immortal flames forbid. We won’t survive whatever’s waiting for us in Fodlan by being predictable.”

Dropping her faux-affronted act easily, she falls into step next to him, nosing into his palm affectionately. “You’ve decided to go then?”

“What did Clemente tell you?” he asks again rather than confirming.

They reach a tightly clustered copse of trees. There is a narrow space between the many entangled trunks that leads to a garden almost directly around the corner from his quarters, cutting the journey by almost a third. It had been easy to squeeze through as a child, but this might be the last year they are able to take advantage of this particular shortcut. Or, well, _his_ last year, Khalid thinks, as he watches Ameretat zip through without a second look behind.

Following after her, he pushes himself through the branches and leaves, shoving his body through with some effort until he pops out the other side to Ameretat’s amused face, her tongue lolling in a grin. 

“Oh shush,” he says while she blinks up at him, all innocence.

“Clemente reminded me of that childhood story we used to like,” she says as he brushes off the worst of the broken leaves and twigs clinging to his tunic and pants. “The one about the mountain-cleaving weapon.”

“I remember.” Just like that, the conversational tone shifts into somber contemplation. He understands the point his mother’s daemon is making. For the sake of his ambitions, this is an unexpected opportunity. He had been staring at an stagnant impasse here, wracking his brains as to how to force an advantage. This could be a gift, actually, if he could find a way to rally support from the country of his mother's birth. There is also something gratifying in the thought of turning the thing he's been mocked for all his life into a defining strength. 

"I knew you'd appreciate the irony," Ameretat says smugly as they round the corner, coming into view of their quarters. 

"We're going to need new names."

* * *

"Amy?"

She flicks one ear dubiously — a wordless rejection. "How about Claude? It's a family name. You remember—"

"Of course." Of course he remembers. It is another story their mother was fond of telling, tracing the legacy of courage and determination of the women of her family, imprinting it onto Khalid and Ameretat as they fell asleep to build a bulwark against the taunts leveled at them during the day. _I come from a proud, fearless line. And you are my son._

She can feel him trying the name on, like a new cloak. She knows the minute he — they — decide that it fits. "I like it. Mera? Mira? Myra?"

She smiles, as much as her vulpine features can smile, baring sharp canines. "Myra. Lots of meanings to choose from. I like that."

* * *

Two months later, Claude von Riegan and his daemon, Myra, are officially presented to the Leicester Alliance roundtable as House Riegan's heir.

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so instead of working on the overdue chapter of my WIP, I am instead fighting off my daemon au ficlets that have decided to procreate prolifically (though not always coherently), so this is now a series lol
> 
> And uh, to subscribers who might have already gotten a false positive notification today about this work, sorry! I did the ao3 posting equivalent of pressing send too soon :|


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